Outside the store, night was falling. The day had been rainy and wet, but inside things were brightly lit. A rosey cheeked young man finished filling his shopping cart, and double checked his list. Ramen noodles. Check. Coca cola. Check. Yep. He was finished. He was dressed in clothing that might be best described as Office Max casual--except for the gangsta rapper stocking hat. Below the rolled up hat brim his short cropped red hair was visible. As he wheeled his cart full of oriental flavored ramen noodles, and 2 liter bottles of coca cola, to the HyVee checkout stand, the beautiful young girl asked, "Did you find everything you needed, Sir?" Although she looked too young for it to be true, Trisha G. had been employed there for 4 years according to her nametag.
Sir? Although he had contemplated changing his name (and title for that matter) for his night job, Zeke Richter didn't remember having yet submitted the half completed paperwork for the name change. Reaching around behind himself and turning his head as far as he could, he pulled out the label of his underwear and looked at the tag.
Speaking out of the side of his grin with a comical voice, Zeke purposefully mumbled almost to himself, but loud enough for her to hear it, "Fruit of the Loom. You must be this tall for this ride... What the heck?" He turned back to the clerk, and stroking his goatee he said, "Sorry, but according to my underwear here, I'm not this 'sir' you speak of. Perhaps you have me confused with Sean Connery or Anthony Hopkins. I get that all the time." She giggled, and after a short pause he went on, "Actually Most people call me Richter, but you can call me Zeke, ...and how about I call you early to dinner?" pointing his finger in her general direction to punctuate the word "you". Yes, in many circles Zeke Richter was the king of smooth. Some of those circles were more oval shaped than anything else.
As she started waving his groceries across what Zeke called "the magic laser scanner," Trisha smiled and replied, "Dinner? but I don't even know you. Zeke."
"What's to know? and how did you know my name,... Trisha?" he replied as he looked down at the nametag on his red shirt. "Dooh! I mean... Although I model Office Max office and casual wear by day, at night I am the LEAD record scratcher in a Christian band known throughout the galaxy as The Staddic."
"Impressive," she replied as she magically scanned in the price of another ramen noodle package. "That must be quite a responsibility."
"Well, there's not too many of us in the record scratching section. Technically you're looking at the whole section. I also represent the keyboard and the harmonica section. If you let me make you a scrumptious ramen noodle dinner on thursday night, I'll let you pick out the record I use in our next gig. Or is that jig?" Zeke Richter was on a roll. Literally. The customer at the next counter had been placing his things on the conveyor belt when one of his jelly filled doughnuts fell off and landed inches from Zeke's foot. He stepped, and cherry filling splattered the surrounding linoleum.
Assuming the identity of Homer Simpson, Zeke looked down and rattled off, "Stupid Jelly Doughnut. No, wait, I can't hate you. You're the source of my happiness. But you must share me with pork chops... .mmmm pork chops, and until the band is famous, ramen noodles."
Within a minute, the checkout guy at the next counter stepped in to clean up the mess with the mop. Casually keeping up the banter with Trisha, Zeke paid his grocery bill with his Checks-In-The-Mail brand checks (Star Wars Series #249). Before handing him his receipt she wrote something on it and said, "Hey, nice checks. I'm busy Thursday night, but I'd love to get together another night. Here's my unlisted phone number, I want you to give me a call. And we're not going to have ramen noodles!"
He gathered up the plastic bags and put them into the nearby cart, but before he left her checkout stand he said, "I have to say, that I lied about being an office max clothing model. These clothes are my work clothes. I'm really an employee. A good employee.... Yeah, that's it. In fact, I was employee of the month back in December. Yeah, that's the ticket. In fact, if things go well, I might make supervisor and a 50 cent raise by the end of this month... I hope that doesn't change your mind about me. I just couldn't live with myself if I thought that it was a lie that brought us together."
"You're funny." Trisha laughed, and was looking directly at him when she smiled a big smile and pulled her microphone close to her lips. "Security to front please, code 3. We've got a little problem."
As Zeke hurried for the door, she called after him, "No, not you Zeke, I meant that guy that was shop-lifting on aisle 7. Call me."
Dun ta dun tun... Dun ta dun... The indian jones theme music played in Zeke's mind as he rolled the shopping cart out of the HyVee. Even the one wheel that was turning the wrong way and pushing the cart's trajectory curve off course could not dispell his good mood. Trisha G. and the Z-man. He was taking her out. If only he had a car, he thought, as he began the 9 block walk back to his apartment.
(c) 2000 by Chuck Richter.